Nicely cut, properly cooked, strikingly served

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru:

The balance of various tastes that marks good cooking is the best analogy for this horrorcomedy that takes cooking, serving, and eating to their extreme fantasy. The Menu is a satire, a dark comedy where horror is the side dish. But these are tastes we have already acquired, and it only needed to be nicely cut, properly cooked and strikingly served by director Mark Mylod.

He does that with finesse. A single-set story allows some good actors to deliver some entertaining performances that serve as the icing on the cake. A getaway for the super-rich in a super-exclusive restaurant that serves a super-exclusive menu is something anyone with an appetite for dark humour and horror can give a miss.

The film begins with a few appetizer scenes that promise to continue to take the film to new, unimaginable heights. However, the chef keeps the menu straight, allowing his customers as well as the audience to taste the courses rather than eat them. At times, it feels like the film is one long appetizer never trying to satisfy the hunger.

But that is how it is meant to be. It leaves an after-taste that is hard to clean off. Ralph Fiennes is the celebrity chef at the Hawthrone restaurant on a remote island where a disparate group of the rich (they have paid $1,000 each for the multi-course exclusive dining experience) arrive for the promised pleasure.

The group has food critics, foodies, a retired couple and financiers. Are they really on the island for the food experience? With each passing course served by the chef, the reality bites, literally. While for the chef, it is an art he wants to display, the guests have much more on their minds than just food. The culinary experience means different things for each of them.

It is when their individual pursuits are revealed that the true nature of the film comes to the fore. The story takes place on a single set on a single evening. While trying to be a horror film, it displays all the unsettling dishes (but in beautifully captured cinematography) but at the same time combines it with satisfyingly dry humour. Bon Appetit if you wil